I Am A Hero 2015 Based on a manga by Kengo Hanazawa, screenplay by Akiko Nogi, directed by Shinsuke Sato.
Hideo is 35 years old and an assistant to a manga artist. He can't get any publishers to publish his own stories. His girlfriend of 15 years decides she's had enough of him on the day before a zombie outbreak happens in Tokyo. She kicks him out of the house, when he returns the next day it's too late for her, she's turned.
Hideo spends the movie shuffling about the city with his shotgun. He's about the only one with a gun. He falls in with some people along the way, most of them die. It's a lot like a lot of zombie films but there's a good bit of personal melodrama in it's 126 mins. A little trimming would help that.
The action is fairly good and the pace picks up once they get to the Outlet Mall. It's supposed to be a mall near Mount Fuji but the movie filmed in a failed mall in Korea. The IMDb Trivia page says the Japanese government has such strict gun laws that they wouldn't let the filmmakers shoot the shotgun in the movie. They had more freedom to shoot the shotgun in the Korean mall.
I enjoyed some of the film but it takes a while to get to the hero part. It's only about average to me but I would watch it again for some of the action bits. I'd give it a 5 on the IMDb but wouldn't think it's worth a 6.
Reborn 2019 Written by Michael Mahin and directed by Julian Richards.
Barbara Crampton is an actor who had a stillborn child 16 years before. Turns out that the baby wasn't dead when it went to the morgue. It revives on it's own and the creepy attendant steals the child and raises Tess as his sister.
Things go bad on Tess's sixteenth birthday, her brother is supposed give her some details about her birth but he doesn't. Instead he comes on pretty rapey. The stress causes Tess to awaken her powers over electricity. She kills her brother, then opens his safe, a clue leads her to the physician that birthed her. He doesn't do well from the encounter but Tess finds out the name of her birth mother.
Tess visits Barbara but doesn't reveal her ID at first. Barbara gives acting lessons and she thinks Tess is a new student. Barbara isn't getting a lot of job offerings anymore. In fact, her agent says Barb better get that part in the Bogdanovich movie she's auditioning for or she won't have an agent anymore. Tess kills a couple more people and the cops are on her trail. Michael Pare plays the police detective.
Monty Markham plays Barbara's therapist. He sends Barbara to look for closure with her dead daughter. He wants her to visit her daughter's grave but it can't be found. Tess eventually reveals who she is to Barbara and things don't go so well there either. Eventually there's a bit of a showdown between Tess and Michael.
I liked the movie for the most part but it wasn't more than average. It's better than it's 4.2 on the IMDb but I wouldn't give it a 6. I think they did a good job of packing a lot of story into it's 77 mins. I doubt that I need to see it again.
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